Rethinking How Students Finance Higher Education

Rethinking How Students Finance Higher Education

by | Jul 21, 2026 | Outcomes and Accountability, Policy

Rethinking How Students Finance Higher Education

For many students, the biggest barrier to earning a degree isn’t getting admitted—it’s figuring out how to pay for it.

As recent federal policy changes reshape financial aid and today’s learners balance work, family, military service, and education, institutions are looking beyond traditional funding models to help students complete their degrees. Leaders from National University, NCHER, and CLASP joined the Presidents Forum to discuss how colleges, employers, lenders, and policymakers can work together to create more sustainable pathways to affordability.

Today’s students need more flexible financing

Today’s learners are very different from the traditional college student for whom many financial aid systems were originally designed.

Many students are working full-time, raising families, serving in the military, or returning to college after years in the workforce. At the same time, recent changes to federal student aid have reduced borrowing capacity for some students, making it even more important to understand all available financing options.

Paying for college requires shared responsibility

Federal aid remains the foundation of college affordability, but the panel argued that it can no longer carry the entire burden.

Institutions are expanding scholarship programs, employers are investing in tuition assistance and student loan repayment, and responsible private financing can help students bridge unavoidable funding gaps. Workforce shortages in healthcare, manufacturing, and other high-demand industries are also encouraging employers to invest directly in the talent they need.

Transparency matters

Students and families need straightforward information about tuition, fees, financing options, and the long-term affordability of a degree—not just during enrollment, but throughout their academic journey.

The panel encouraged institutions to provide more personalized financial counseling, helping students understand the full range of funding options available before financial challenges become barriers to completion.

Student success begins with financial success

Financial aid is no longer simply an enrollment function.

When students unexpectedly encounter funding gaps, many stop out despite being academically successful. Helping students develop a sustainable financial plan from enrollment through graduation improves persistence, completion, and workforce readiness.

Supporting students financially is one of the most effective student success strategies institutions can adopt.

The bottom line

Helping more students earn a college credential will require collaboration across higher education, employers, lenders, and government.

The future of college affordability isn’t a single funding source—it’s a coordinated ecosystem that gives students clear information, flexible financing options, and the support they need to reach graduation.

Transcript

Wes Smith (00:01.661)
Welcome everyone. Today we’re discussing how students are financing higher education beyond federal aid, including private financing options, employer-supported education, and other models that will help students and families navigate paying for a higher education. I’m joined today by Amy Glynn from National University. Amy’s also a visiting fellow at the President’s Forum.

Alex Ricci, the president of the National Council of Higher Education Resources, also known as NCHAR, and David Kafafian, the COO of CLASP. So thanks to our distinguished panel for joining us today and welcome.

David Kafafian (00:42.742)
Thanks for it.

Wes Smith (00:44.467)
Let’s let’s start with question the first question on on the top, Amy, can you set the stage for us? Why is this discussion about how students are funding their education? Why is it important in this moment?

Amy Glynn (01:16.635)
Well, I think we’re seeing several trends really converging at once. First, we have students who are facing greater financial uncertainty, right? While federal aid remains the foundation of college affordability, it’s often not enough to cover the tuition and fees, to say nothing about the full cost of attendance. And paying for college isn’t just about tuition, it’s about including books, supplies, living expenses.

David Kafafian (01:24.118)
Yeah.

Amy Glynn (01:41.426)
Tied right into that. Secondly, is the fact that learners themselves have changed. The profile of who we are supporting in college and paying for college is not the same. Nearly three-quarters of today’s college students are considered non-traditional. They are students and they’re working. They’re students and they’re supporting families. They’re students and they’re serving in the mid military, or they’re returning to education after years in the workforce, right?

Wes Smith (02:06.077)
And and Amy, you have a term for that at National.

Amy Glynn (02:09.489)
We do. We like to call these students anders because, like I said, they’re students and something or many other things in life. And we need to ensure that we are educating and serving the whole student that comes to our institution. And so financing needs have changed and they don’t.

Wes Smith (02:12.373)
Okay.

Amy Glynn (02:31.921)
For our ANDRES or our non-traditional students, they don’t always fit the traditional academic calendars or assumptions built into the federal aid programs. And then the third thing I’m gonna say is that institutions and employers are recognizing that financing is no longer just a financial aid conversation. It’s a conversation about student success. It’s a conversation about completion. When students can’t bridge that relatively small funding gap, they often stop out.

Right, even when they’re in good ad but academic standing, the number one reason that students cite for leaving school is broadly financing. And that is a huge issue. And so to create more interest in responsible employer partnership, private financing options, payments, other solutions that can all complement the federal system.

That’s where we’re all trying to work together to figure out what are those solutions for the future of higher education and the success of our students. And that’s why I’m actually super excited to have both CLASP and NSHAR who are doing great work in this space to have a conversation about some of the things that institutions are doing, some of the innovation that is happening in the funding model, and to figure out how we can really start to serve students financially in a more holistic manner.

Wes Smith (03:53.971)
Right. Amy, I love the I love the setup. Alex, I know, I know that this is the heart of what you do. I’m and there’s there’s really nobody that feels this finance pressure quite like the institutions, but an extension of that is is your work at NShare. And you’re working on on ways that students can navigate this and get a higher education. What are you seeing out there? Why is this moment different?

Alex Ricci (04:23.045)
Well I

Appreciate you inviting me to this conversation. You’re exactly right. This is a really pivotal moment for many students and families as well as institutions. And driving most of the headlines are massive changes that Congress passed and the president signed into law last July fourth, so in 2025, with an implementation date of July one of this year. So just several weeks ago at the time of this recording. And so these massive public policy changes, which include things like new loan limits, both annual and aggregate.

In the federal student loan program, as well as scheduled reduction, which is a sort of fancy term to describe how now, if you’re a student attending less than full-time, you don’t necessarily qualify for that full loan amount. These changes are putting massive pressures on students and families that are well known in higher education, and new students that are entering for the first time who thought that they would have a certain amount of aid available to them and no longer.

Do. And when you combine that large change, we’re talking about something around $85 billion in new federal student loans that were dispersed in the last award year. Combined with all of the pressures that Amy mentioned, we’re looking at an environment that’s really difficult to navigate. So it’s important to have this conversation to focus on what entities are doing to step up and take a holistic approach to solving this problem for students and families.

Wes Smith (05:48.595)
Right. So you’ve seen and we’ve all seen a lot of changes starting July one, and they’re impacting the way that that the funding is available for different students pursuing different programs. I I know David that you’re on the front lines of this. And so I’m gonna ask a question to all the panelists, but I wanna hear from each of your vantage points w what are the most viable non federal options that you’re seeing right now that will help students. But David, I wanna start that with you.

David Kafafian (06:19.413)
Yeah. thank you again for having me and yes, thank you as Amy said for having me back. so look, first things first, we still want to respect that students should think about grants and savings first. They should then think about what federal loan options they have available. and then after that, that’s where the conversation really begins because these new loan caps, as as Alex and Amy talked about, will limit many students to twenty thousand, twenty thousand five hundred, fifty thousand, depending on what limit affects them per annum.

and that frequently will not cover the cost of their tuition fees, just room board, et cetera. I think many people think that the private market, the Sally Mays and Sofis and college ads of the world are going to just plug the hole left by the federal government. And we know that that’s not true. 96% of undergraduate private student loans are co-signed, 73%, as of last time I checked, of graduate loans, graduate private student loans are co-signed.

That means that if you are from an immigrant family and your parents don’t have a FIGO that carried here to the US, you’re from a lower middle income family. You’re a graduate student whose parents have just said, we’re done. We’ve done our part. There are many instances where a student will not have access to that private loan. And so then that’s where the kind of innovations need to begin. There’s two things that we see working here at Class that we’re thrilled to partner with schools and employers on. The first is on the access side.

where we work with universities that who themselves are offering gap loans as a loan of the last resort for their students, not requiring cosign or being properly disclosed under Regzi and you know meeting all of the compliance requirements that you would expect of anybody else. But ultimately these are programs that schools are offering and that they’re not making money on. They they lose money on these programs, but it is a way for a student to persist because there’s nothing worse than the student who has to stop out because they have a $7,000 gap. and then they end up with getting no degree.

That’s bad for them, that’s bad for society. School has a graduation rate hit and a potentially a cohort default rate risk. So that’s option one is is schools to actually step in and support their students here. Option two, and one that we also love working on, is is actually working with employers. So go to the the the end of the value chain where students are ultimately trying to get to and work with them to either provide provide tuition assistance programs or student loan repayment as a benefit. And so

David Kafafian (08:37.281)
This won’t work in every part of the economy. It needs to be in a place where frankly employers need more talent than currently exists. But throughout clinical health care, we know a class that there’s you know 50 some odd health systems that have already signed on with us to offer anywhere from thirty thousand to a hundred and eighty thousand dollars of loan repayment on the back end. So the student still has to go get their own loan funding. but then once they graduate and pass licensure, every month that they work at that employer, they’re getting five hundred, a thousand, two thousand dollars a month.

directly to their loan servicers. and so again, I think there’s plentiful opportunities that that can exist. healthcare’s not the only place, but it’s the place that that we’ve we’re focused on here at Class.

Wes Smith (09:14.739)
Yeah. Alex, I I want you to weigh in on the employer as a funder in higher education. I we we’re seeing that, you know, specifically with what what David mentioned and and the programs in healthcare that they’re working on. have you seen this employer funding, you know, the step up from employers in a wider array than more than just healthcare, or where are we seeing those types of programs?

Alex Ricci (09:45.144)
Employers want a qualified workforce. And right now, colleges and universities are the ones that are doing the lion’s share of providing that educated workforce of the future. And so we do see a number of employers that are stepping up. David mentioned that healthcare is a big one, and for very good reason. We have an aging population and there’s just always a a need for those kinds of individuals to assist in every stage of life. But we do see other industries that are beginning to pop up and show more interest in helping fund

A student’s education and it spans more than just healthcare. So, a couple of examples include advanced manufacturing. We see a lot of emphasis now being put on trades, what we would consider historically blue-collar work as we look to build out more energy infrastructure, as we seek to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure. These kinds of jobs that power that economy are really in demand. And so employers that are performing that work are more than happy to help do tuition reimbursement or

other types of partnerships at the front end, not necessarily student loan repayment, to make sure that these students have the money that they need to complete that program.

Wes Smith (10:53.673)
Right. Right. I’ve seen I I I mean recently I saw that Meta is working on you mentioned the you know the energy infrastructure and the and and the work that goes into that, that they’re funding some some trades that that will help that workforce. I’ve seen, you know, in the microchip manufacturing sec sector, we’ve seen strategic investments that that businesses and employers are stepping up there. And and I think that this is, you know, more

Of a trend, hopefully, that we’ll see moving forward into the future. Amy, anything that you want to add to non-federal options that we’re seeing and and that people should be aware of?

Amy Glynn (11:35.027)
well, I I think there’s two things that I I want to address. The first is when I look at financing of education, I think about who gets the benefit of it of that education, right? Society gets the benefit when we have more a more educated population and there is able to be better a better

ready workforce. And so that’s where the federal government and taxpayers are investing in the federal financial aid system. Institutions benefit, obviously, we are in the business of bettering the lives and of providing education. And that’s where we see institutions investing in scholarshipping and discounting programs to support students. The student is obviously committing a financial obligation in the loans that they are taking and the time commitment that they are providing.

And then the fourth one is employers. And so really to the conversation about the employer investment who is benefiting directly from the education that a student receives to me, like that’s the quadrant we need to look at in resolving the funding gap. This in addition to that though, I am gonna say like we’re talking about the back end of the equation. And if we’re gonna talk about the back end of the equation, we have to talk about the math that goes into the front end. And that means that we need to be talking about

How we are pricing higher education, how we are having cost transparency.

What those pricing models look like, how we drive operational efficiency in higher education, how we reduce the cost and the confusion that students are facing when they are making a selection. I don’t want to oversimplify this, but I’m in Arizona and there’s this car dealership, and they offer what’s called no bull pricing. And they literally tell you: we are going to tell you exactly what the price.

Amy Glynn (13:29.736)
Is for the car. There’s no games, there’s no like, like, here’s what we paid, here are the add-ons, and here’s what we’re gonna charge you, and we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna haggle. Right. And like that idea of having a window sticker where a student understands exactly how much the education is, what comes with that price, and what their funding options are is a place that we need to get to. So I really believe in simplification of our pricing model.

transparency of our pricing model so we understand what is the financial end that we need to come up with at the end.

Wes Smith (14:06.759)
Amy, I you’re you’re speaking like somebody who may have gone through this process recently with a child and seen this firsthand.

Amy Glynn (14:15.184)
I mean, I’m speaking as someone who has spent over 20 years in the financial aid industry and who has also helped their own child through a really horrific process of trying to understand the cost associated with her education and what options were truly available to us. And I will say, being where we sit.

in the the income quadrants that we sit in, there’s not a lot of options unless we want to be, you know, $60,000 in debt every year for our child’s education.

Wes Smith (15:02.495)
Right. Right. I I I love the perspective that it brought going through it. Like not only have you been a professional in it for 20 years, and we’ve had this conversation before here at the presence forum on a podcast. It’s just stunning to me that a professional who knows the the industry in and out still, when you go through the process personally and you’re dealing with a lot of different institutions.

It’s tough to navigate. I can only imagine how hard it is for parents that have no expertise in this area. It’s not, they’re not professionals. They haven’t, you know, been been doing it for decades, and and they’re thrown in to the same kind of chaos. That’s this is this is a tough thing for parents and students to navigate. There’s no question about that.

Amy Glynn (15:51.795)
So I will tell you, orientation was orientation was two weeks ago. We registered for courses. She registered for the exact courses that her advisor suggested. We get a note two two days later. Hey, just wanted to let you know there’s a tuition overload fee. And I was like, how much how many credits did the tuition cover? I thought it covered up to 18. And it was like, I don’t know. I can’t find it. I’m like, great, we can’t find it on the website. Let’s call. Right. And like

David Kafafian (15:51.989)
And what’s the card?

Amy Glynn (16:21.551)
I knew what I had to look for. The information was not there. And here we are: tuition overload fee.

Wes Smith (16:30.355)
Yeah, you need some no bull pricing. I I heard

Amy Glynn (16:32.818)
Apparently, if you want to take more than 16 credits at Institution X, you need to pay an additional $252.

Wes Smith (16:41.737)
Yeah, it’s it’s a wild process and and it can be frustrating, I know. And and this is, you know, this is one of the reasons that it’s you know, if you pull Americans today on issues that that they’re facing, consistently student loans are and and student finance, you know, financing of higher education is on people’s mind. And there’s a reason for that. It’s not just because, you know, it is is because people go through it, they’re frustrated, and then they see the outcome.

And they’re like, I I how did I get in the position I’m in? So this is a really timely conversation. yep.

David Kafafian (17:18.241)
Well, so I can put some if I could put some like some some precise numbers on it because this hasn’t been publicly released yet, but we we had just commissioned a a study of students ourselves here at Clasp and

As of 36 hours ago, so you know, you’ll you’ll hear it first. some ones that stood out to me in no particular order. 51% of students have considered dropping out for financial reasons, 20% have seriously considered it, 78% report monthly financial strain of some kind. and then the one that is again specific to the sector that we focus on, healthcare, but I I think it is very telling. 61% say becoming a healthcare professional is not realistic without family wealth or outside support. That is like

Wes Smith (17:33.825)
perfect.

David Kafafian (18:00.194)
Horrifying state of affairs. Any one of us, 100% of the population, can be a patient of healthcare at any given time. And so when you see numbers like that, paired with everything Amy just shared, you understand why employers are coming to the table. I think employers, you know, this administration has tried to pull employers further in. And I just think that the the the brass hacks of it all, what I just laid out, means that employers who used to kind of say that our education

and the financing of was kind of upstream of them. It wasn’t where they needed to pay their attention. They are increasingly becoming aware that their talent pipelines and their viability is at risk without going upstream themselves and thinking about how to support students and families there. And of course, you know, risk sharing doesn’t mean that the employers will take all of the risk. They will not pin the full check no matter what. And so I I think innovative models that do actually provide risk sharing, but the student owns their own.

academic success. and the employers then share in some of or all the costs on the back end, I think is, you know, just one of the many ways that this can happen. But but again, the the the path we’re going down is not sustainable given the numbers I just share.

Wes Smith (19:08.605)
Yeah, absolutely. And and great that’s great, that’s great information to have. Very timely. Thanks for sharing that, David. Alex, I want to come your way, but I wanna I wanna swap slightly. While there is employer help that’s needed, we we have to have employers engaged. They’re filling a a a very important gap, especially in in industries of high need. But I also don’t want to

miss the institutions role in this, the higher ed institutions. How can higher education institutions help students navigate options that might be available and and do it in a responsible way to, you know, keep costs as low as possible?

Alex Ricci (19:54.887)
Well, three items come to mind. I had four, but Amy hit the nail on the head when she talked about examining the pricing of programs and cost transparency for students and families. I think that that’s paramount. You have to make sure that on the front end those things are done well. But taking a lesson learned from private student lenders and other participants in the nonprofit counseling world, one thing that NCHAR members in particular make sure that they do is sit down with that would-be borrower and have a very open conversation about.

About what it means to take out a loan. What does it mean for their long-term projection and what they want to pursue in life? And these things are understood, it’s interactive, it’s personal. And so similarly, I think that there could be a lesson there for institutions of education. How do we step up our counseling and student success efforts? Because at the end of the day, we would hate to have that student drop out for reasons that could be that $252 charge that you didn’t know you were gonna have, and you had only set your budget or your financing according to

According to what you thought you had to pay. obviously it can be much more dramatic than $250 as well. It could be a blown flat tire. And so making sure that you set those things not just up and you have the infrastructure, but that students and families are aware of it. I think that would be item number one that I would flag for institutions of higher education. The second item that I would highlight for institutions of higher education, college, universities, no matter what population you serve, is to talk to other entities in your area. So it’s not

Just employers, it’s high school counselors, it’s foundations in the area, community development foundations. How are your programs educating that workforce of the future so that your students, when they graduate, get into employment or pursue their passion in a way that’s productive for the institution in the long run and students in the community that you serve? And finally, it’s not the end-all be-all solution, but increasingly, students and families will rely on private education loans to help.

Finance their way through school. And that there is an obligation or an opportunity for institutions to put out an RFP and do a preferred lender list and point students and families to those lenders that you have vetted that maybe have the best interest rates or the best backend benefits or payment assistance benefits. Maybe these are lenders that are going to take responsibly, take a risk and lend to a borrower that has either a very thin.

Alex Ricci (22:24.446)
Credit file or no credit history, but they’re in a program that’s going to lead to economic mobility. And so laying these options, pointing students and families to those responsible actors is something institutions should take advantage of now so that students and families aren’t left out on their own and make poor decisions as a consequence of not having good information in front of them.

Wes Smith (22:47.197)
Alex, I I love, you know, well, all three of the of those points very valid. I I love the second point that you made there on there there are resources and there are opportunities that that students can take advantage of that are that are local resources or state level resources that are driving workforce issues, driving workforce opportunity. And I’ve seen that personally in in young people who are.

In high school and are put on a pathway to a workforce opportunity in high school that can then be compounded on in higher education. Do you have any specific things that you’ve seen in that where you’ve said, wow, that is a really great program that has has helped on the workforce trajectory that keeps costs low and you know, kind of is an add-on.

before you even get to higher education. I’m I’m curious if any of our panelists have seen opportunities like that.

Alex Ricci (23:54.034)
just to clarify your question, you’re asking, are there any interesting partnerships out there between private stakeholders and institutions that have helped pave the way for credit advancement or keeping college more affordable?

Wes Smith (24:09.085)
Yeah, well, I’m I’m just thinking like like there are workforce pathways now that have I know in the state of Utah there are workforce pathways in advanced manufacturing that begin in high school. And that you can you can get into these pathways and you have opportunities in in higher education that that wouldn’t be available necessarily to you. And I thought that, you know, that was that that that’s one of the issues that that you had called out of.

maybe there there are ways that you can leverage that that pathway, those exp that expertise that’s available even before higher education.

Alex Ricci (24:49.329)
Yeah, there’s there’s absolutely resources out there that can assist students and families, whether and it’s not just dual enrollment, credit for prior learning assessments exist all over the place, including at many institutions of higher education, where not just that traditional high school student going right out of high school and into a post-secondary program can benefit, but adult learners that are coming back that want to get that credential, they’ve learned a little something, they have experience, but they don’t necessarily

Have that diploma that signifies that they have certain competencies. And so building these things out is something institutions can do. It’s something employers in the community can help assist with, in addition to just the mere financing side of it. I would call out there there is a growing number of what’s called pay it forward programs or evolving door loan funds that are 0% or 1% interest rate loan programs that certain public entities or foundations have established.

And sometimes they are narrowly defined for nursing or radiology. But sometimes they’re not. Sometimes it’s HVAC and welding. And these are the sorts of programs. I know of one in New Jersey, which is a 0% interest rate loan program where it’s not just the loan, but there’s these wraparound supports that exist because employers in the area stepped up, the state government stepped up, a foundation stepped up. So participants, these students and families, they not just don’t just get that loan, which is great, that 0% interest rate loan.

loan, but they get a living siphon. They have access to mental health counseling to help them succeed. They have these other wraparound support services that guide them through the program. So when they take that leap from high school to college, they know exactly what they have to do in order to succeed.

Wes Smith (26:37.021)
And and that I like the idea that that can be tied to institutions of higher education can help guide and help bring those resources, surface them to potential students. And and I would love to see more institutions be expert, you know, have that expertise available for potential students so they can take advantage of all those resources.

David Kafafian (27:02.485)
Well, so I I I obviously I’m not a financial aid professional myself, but I work with many of them. I would certainly echo what you just said there. And I would say that anything that the Department of Ed or policymakers can do to give clarity, whether it’s through a dear colleague letter or otherwise, to universities and financial administrators about what they can speak about, because that too frequently I see financial aid administrators take the position of all we can do is a historical list that just brain dumps every lender that’s ever given ever lent to our students and nothing more.

And we’re in a moment where that is extremely not consumer friendly. Like I don’t blame the schools. I understand the fear that exists there, but that’s not helpful to a student or family. They’re getting a database unsorted or unfiltered to them. They’re not typically seeing many of the state options that are newly released here and plugged into any of these pay it forward funds that Alex is speaking about. so I I don’t envy being a university here, but I also don’t envy being a student or family for the reasons Amy said on that side of it.

I think it would be really, really helpful in this moment for the department to give some guidance around, you know, schools being able to lean in and not preference private lenders, but actually give students a bit more of a tailored bit of guidance so that there’s a better customer experience at the end of the day for the student who’s trying to navigate how do I think between workforce funding and state level funding and like a you know a state state agency and a traditional private lender and something else. And so it’s a tough moment, but it’s one that everybody’s gotta work together.

Wes Smith (28:23.391)
Right.

Wes Smith (28:30.097)
Amy, what’s your perspective on that from the institution side?

Amy Glynn (28:35.357)
Yeah, so there is there is plenty of leeway for universities to be able to talk, educate, and advise on funding options for students without offering preferential treatment. Right. We have had preferred lender lists. I don’t know, Alex, I feel like you probably know for exactly how long. I’m gonna say over a decade, within within higher education, which which is one of the gateways for us to make sure.

Sure, that we are speaking about lenders that align their products and their services appropriately to their students. I can tell you at National, when we started hearing about the changes, we did decide to go down the road of doing an RFI for a preferred lender list. Not telling stories out of school here, but as a veteran-founded institution, if that private lender

Did not offer full deferment options for a student who was deployed in active military service, the lender was eliminated from our list. We aligned the student protections to things that were important to us at our institution based on our mission and the support that we wanted to provide. So there are tools. Schools, school being a financial aid professional, right? The audit.

The program review, super scary thing. The department doesn’t come with like a warm batch of cookies telling you thank you so much for following the rules. They come with a hammer and they’re like, you didn’t follow the rules. and so I get it, it’s scary and the loss of title four is incredibly, incredibly scary for an institution.

So I’m gonna say my advice, financial aid professionals, your GC is your best friend, right? Your general counsel is your best friend, have conversations, see what you can do, find ways to be creative to ensure that we are advising students around all of their options. And that’s what Alex really talked about, right? Like that need to be able to have highly personalized conversations with students about what college is gonna cost, what their funding options are, and laying out all of the options to them and ensuring.

Amy Glynn (30:48.104)
That is not a one-time conversation. Financial aid advising is no longer a nice to have. It is a student success strategy that if your institution does not do it, well.

You are not serving your students and you are not serving yourself in any way. So if you’re an institution that’s like, this is a place I can really get better, there are a lot of institutions who are being really innovative, making great strides. They’re looking at their success models and figuring out how do we bring the conversation of finances and financial barriers to the forefront and address them proactively instead of reactively.

Wes Smith (31:29.405)
Yeah, well stated, Amy. That is absolutely correct. Our our institutions today, if they’re not being proactive on this, they’re missing. They’re missing a huge opportunity. And I like that you you mentioned that it’s all about student success. Financing is not it’s not a peripheral issue. It is it is right up front, and we have to be able to address that as institutions if we’re gonna have students be successful. So

Let me wrap this up. I I would just like to give each of you an opportunity to think through, you know, the big picture on this. But t give us give us one principle that students and families should use when they’re evaluating their options to pay for an education. What’s what’s one thing that they should know going in from your perspective that would be helpful for them to keep like right at the forefront?

I’ll I’ll start David, I’ll start with you and then Alex come your way and then Amy, I’ll give you the last word.

David Kafafian (32:33.523)
And one one principle is hard to to pin down. I I actually would start even before the financing question. And it’s it’s around is the program there and the un institution they’re attending, does the cost and value make sense to them? because it’s it’s a purchasing decision at the end of the day, and people don’t like to talk about school that way, but it absolutely is. And for many families, there is no good way to solve needing to finance a program that has an eighty thousand dollar cost of attendance.

and so I think starting with what is the cost of the program? And that again it would be easier in the in the way that Amy had described it if we got some noble pricing, but what is the cost of the program? How does it map to the value you expect? I I would actually encourage families to start right then and there because there are a ton of careers that we desperately need in the the current and the future workforce. and I think you know students focusing their attention there is the starting point to them then finding what is the pathway to financing that makes most sense for them.

Wes Smith (33:07.305)
Mm-hmm.

Wes Smith (33:33.063)
Right. The the value proposition of of the credential that you’re pursuing. Okay, that makes sense. Alex, w what’s your advice? what’s your your one principle that you would encourage, you know, parents and students to to look into?

David Kafafian (33:37.985)
Absolutely.

Alex Ricci (33:49.244)
If David’s one principle was take a long-term perspective and view your career goals in line with your educational program, I think mine builds off of that. Oftentimes, once you’ve done that, once you know kind of what you want to do or the program that you think will allow you the flexibility to pursue a career of your choosing, you just want to sign on the dotted line. Just okay, tell me where I need to sign to get the money I need to go to this school to to get on with my life. And my advice would be shop.

compare. I think Amy gave a great example earlier in this conversation when they were vetting private lenders and what mattered to their population of students and and their their founders of the institution, you know, they weren’t going to go with a lender that wasn’t going to have a full deferral for active duty military service members. Well similarly, like if the military is your thing, don’t just sign up with a private lender that has the lowest rate if you’re gonna have interest accrual when you’re active duty. So take the time to shop around to identify

the options that make the most sense. Frequently, that time pressure is real and you just want to get the money in your bank account as soon as possible or over to the institution. So my rule of thumb is shop and compare. There are lots of options out there and the more time you take to do that right, though your future self will thank you.

Wes Smith (35:06.917)
I I I love the advice and it gets us back to one of Amy’s, you know, observations. This this idea that it’s not as transparent as it seems. So there’s a lot of work to do. When you’re saying shop and compare, you’re saying do the homework, it’s worth it at the end of the day. Yeah. Okay. So Amy, we’ll give you the last word here. what what principle

Coming from a financial aid professional and somebody who’s just recently done this, what would you encourage parents and students to do?

Amy Glynn (35:37.588)
So this is the advice I gave my daughter when we were shopping for schools. I said, your choice about where you go to school is a trifecta. You need to start with the personal fit of the institution. Is the institution the right size for you? Is it in the right location? Is it in the right environment? Do you feel comfortable on campus?

Is it an academic fit for you? Does the institution that you are choosing offer the program that you are interested in and the quality or reputation of program that you desire?

And is it a financial fit? When we look at the cost and the funding available, can we afford this in year one? And do we have a sustainable funding path to be able to afford your entire four-year degree at that institution? Are you comfortable?

With the debt and the financial obligations that you’re signing on to for the next 10 to 20 years. Are your father and I comfortable and capable of signing on to the financial obligations? Right. And so it’s really looking at finding an institution that meets the personal, the academic, and the financial fit for the student profile and their family. And I will say there is an institution out there for everybody.

But you need to continue to look until you find the right fit. Trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. Sorry, I couldn’t remember the shapes there for a moment. Trying trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole when it comes to choosing a college is not going to work. It’s going to result in stopping out.

Amy Glynn (37:22.354)
it is going to result in you wasting time, money, and energy and having disappointment. And so we really need to commit to finding that right fit.

Wes Smith (37:33.009)
I I love your observation. It and it we it could get lost if if we don’t pull this out, but it’s not just about year one of the cost. You have to be able to see year two, three, and four. Like the financial the viability all the way through is important because there are students who get a, you know, a a different price for year one. And that’s not the same price they’re gonna have all all the way through. So that could be a problem. So

I’m glad that you pointed that out, Amy. But to all of our panelists, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for bringing your expertise in and having this conversation with the Presidents Forum. We look forward to having you all back on topics similar to this and right in your wheelhouse so we can we can provide content to our listeners that’ll be helpful moving forward. So thanks for joining.

How AI Can Remove Friction From the College Admissions Process

How AI Can Remove Friction From the College Admissions Process

by | Jul 17, 2026 | Innovation

How AI Can Remove Friction From the College Admissions Process

The college admissions process should help students move toward opportunity—not create barriers that slow them down.

Ashish Fernando, Founder and CEO of Presidents Forum partner EDMO, believes artificial intelligence can help colleges and universities create a more personalized, efficient admissions experience while allowing staff to spend more time supporting students.

A student experience that inspired a solution

Fernando’s perspective comes from firsthand experience.

As an international student applying to graduate school in the United States, he encountered different application requirements, timelines, interviews, and document requests at every institution. While colleges understood what students needed, delivering the right guidance at the right time proved difficult.

That experience ultimately inspired the creation of EDMO, with a focus on helping institutions reduce friction throughout the admissions process.

Access means more than affordability

Fernando argues that expanding access isn’t simply about lowering tuition.

Students also need timely information, personalized guidance, and a clearer understanding of which institutions and academic programs align with their goals.

EDMO uses AI to analyze prior coursework, credentials, work experience, and career interests to help institutions recommend programs that fit each student’s unique background. Instead of asking students to navigate a complex system alone, AI can help colleges provide individualized guidance from the very beginning.

Let AI handle the paperwork

Admissions offices often serve thousands of prospective students with relatively small teams.

Fernando sees AI as a way to automate repetitive administrative work so admissions professionals can focus on what matters most—building relationships, answering questions, and helping students make informed decisions.

Rather than replacing staff, AI gives existing teams the capacity to provide more personalized service at scale.

AI should strengthen the human experience

Fernando believes admissions is one of the best places for institutions to begin implementing AI because much of the work centers on operational processes.

As AI expands into advising, instruction, and student support, institutions should be thoughtful about preserving the human connections that remain essential to student success. Technology should enhance those relationships—not replace them.

Over time, Fernando expects AI to become foundational infrastructure across higher education, enabling institutions to personalize support throughout the entire student lifecycle.

The bottom line

Artificial intelligence delivers its greatest value when it removes barriers for students.

By reducing friction in admissions and giving staff more time for meaningful interactions, colleges and universities can improve access, strengthen the student experience, and help more learners achieve their educational and career goals.

Transcript

Wes (0:22): Welcome to the President’s Forum Podcast. Today I’m joined in studio by Ashish Fernando. He’s the founder and CEO of Edmo, and the newest collaboration partner of the forum. Edmo is focused on higher education institutions, working with them to improve admissions, enrollment, and student experience through AI. So, Ashish, welcome to the podcast. More importantly, welcome to the forum.

Ashish Fernando (1:07): Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for the invite.

Wes (1:11): Not all of our listeners know about Edmo. So, like give us a 101. Start like very basic. You started Edmo, and you were looking at certain things that you wanted to change, things you wanted to improve. What are those things? How did this come about?

Ashish Fernando (1:31): Yeah, it’s a great question, and you know, I always want to start by saying I never intended to start an AI company. What I think the intention was, was to solve a human problem in higher ed. And that problem stems from my own background. So, I came to this country 12 years ago to get my MBA, right? And I applied to a lot of schools and and I saw a lot of friction in that process, especially as an international student, where you have all of the challenges of domestic admissions, plus visas and travel, and you’re leaving your family, and…

Wes (2:12): Yeah, that makes sense.

Ashish Fernando (2:13): How do you get a place to stay in a different land? So, there are so many things, and I went through that whole process myself, and I realized there was something that I needed to shift there from… And it didn’t seem like a challenge around, you know, people knowing what’s needed. Like, institutions knowing what’s needed. Institutions precisely know what an international student needs, but it’s a challenge of friction. There’s like, I mean, you most schools, 30,000, 40,000 students admitted, but only admitted. How many of them are applying? More than 100,000. How do you cater to each one, personalize the attention, and get them to do what they want? That’s where I thought, you know, technology could could drive that change. It could help operationally, making it more efficient, frictionless, and that’s kind of the journey from trying to help the student to figure out how to do things to like, oh my god, aha moment. If I’m on the institution side, I can do better. Yeah.

Wes (3:23): So so this like stems from your use case.

Ashish Fernando (3:28): Yeah.

Wes (3:29): You’re out there, you’re thinking this could be so much easier. Give us an example of the friction that you encountered. You’re you’re working on this and you’re like, this is wild. Why do I do this?

Ashish Fernando (3:40): Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I only half joke about it when I say my my Indian mother would, you know, if you asked her still, she would say, “No, he probably should have gone to Yale,” still, even after she sees my 10-year trajectory, right?

Wes (3:55): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (3:56): Because it’s very societal. Like, you want to go to a high-ranking institution. So, I’m like, fine. I’ll apply to a Yale, I applied to UBC in Canada, again, another prestigious institution in Canada, because I didn’t know if I’ll get a US visa.

Wes (4:08): Right.

Ashish Fernando (4:09): And then I applied to a few that I thought were right for me, right? And one of that was Bentley, which is where I went to school. But, you apply to all of them at the same time, but they respond to you at different times.

Wes (4:23): Right.

Ashish Fernando (4:24): Right? They ask different questions. There’s different documents. Yale had an MBA interview, but Bentley did not. Bentley instead had an interview with a committee that wanted to know what’s my extra extra-curricular.

Wes (4:37): Okay.

Ashish Fernando (4:38): So, in all of that is where I saw there’s there’s there’s a lot of like time gap, friction, lack of understanding as a student of what I need to do. Like, how can I get this across the finish line?

Wes (4:53): So, yeah, this makes sense that, okay, so you’re seeing all of the disparate requests, you’re you’re seeing how inefficient it can be. Did that impact your decision making? Like you’re thinking, I got to hear back from these institutions while I’m still working with this institution and when to I just remember, you know, you got to put a deposit down at some point. You don’t want to do that if you’re not sure you’re going to go to that institution. So, all of those things kind of wrap up into your thinking where, hey, this could be a lot easier.

Ashish Fernando (5:27): Yes, absolutely. You know, like for instance, the last admit I got was from from UBC, right?

Wes (5:35): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (5:36): It was too late for me. Even if I wanted to go there, I couldn’t because I put my deposit down for another institution. But beyond that, you know, it becomes a question of not just the friction, but also like, you and I talked about access.

Wes (5:51): Yeah. Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (5:52): You know, I always try to think access is not just a a cost issue. Access is also an issue of does information reach me at the right time? Do I know that there’s an institution out there that’s fit for me?

Wes (6:06): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (6:07): Right? There might be like five schools that, you know, I have let’s say $15,000 in the bank, I could have five institutions. But I don’t know they exist.

Wes (6:16): Right.

Ashish Fernando (6:17): So, that’s that’s the problem I try to solve because I had that problem when I came here.

Wes (6:22): So, you’re on the front line of this right now. And and access is a big issue with the forum. Always looking to improve access. What are you seeing out there right now that you’re that you’re just saying, this this kind of friction or barrier should be unacceptable. We we need to change this in our system. What are you seeing now that that are the big issues?

Ashish Fernando (6:47): So, before we talk about big issues, I’ll tell you what I’m the one thing that I’m seeing that for me is my silver lining.

Wes (6:54): Okay.

Ashish Fernando (6:55): I think we’ve gone from especially domestically, right? If you ask an Indian family, they’re still going to say, “Yeah, my kid needs to go to Harvard,” right? But I think domestically we’ve shifted in terms of how we think of education and access to it. And you you see the, you know, the advent of the big onlines and they’re starting to do well and you actually, I mean, some of them are are our customers, and when I see that, okay, now I can actually, I’m a single mom, I don’t have enough money to go to even, you let’s say, the U, right? But but I can do this online while I’m doing my job. So, not just offset my cost of education, but also fend for my family, right, feed my child.

Wes (7:43): Which is a reality that most people deal with.

Ashish Fernando (7:45): Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Wes (7:46): They they really have to deal with this.

Ashish Fernando (7:48): Most people, including me, we wake up late to say, “Oh my god, I should have done this,” and it’s like you’re five years late, right?

Wes (7:55): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (7:56): And so so I think, that’s my silver line. Like, I did I did my undergrad and my masters in biotech. And nowhere close to doing anything in biotech, right? Running tech because I realized where my my mojo is, and where I think I can contribute more to society. But now coming to where I see some of that that challenge, right? So, um yeah, this is the silver lining and and things are happening well. I feel uh I feel what students are lacking is not just, “Oh, okay, I I need this education,” but what they’re lacking is an entire end-to-end funnel to say, “Okay, what do you want to achieve in the end, and then play that back, reverse engineer it,” because so many times we’ll have students go through an entire education and be like, “Yeah, I had $15,000, now I went through my bachelor’s degree, but you know what, it’s not what I want.”

Wes (8:53): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (8:54): Yeah, so it’s education is not trying to solve access to learning. It’s actually trying to solve access to livelihood.

Wes (9:02): Agreed. Yeah, I mean, well, 90 plus percent of the reason people go to school is that the the outcome, right? Being able to provide for your family or being able to be actively engaged in the workforce. So, I’m hearing you say that needs to be the focus, work back from that, make decisions that are informed by where you want to be there.

Ashish Fernando (9:29): Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Wes (9:31): I I couldn’t agree more. I we we had this conversation, you know, before we started rolling, but the conversation about brand in in higher ed and it seems to be, you know, alive and well, that brand bias is out there. You see rankings all the time, you see, but you also see the cost for the major, you know, major educational brands are significant. They’re they’re barriers for for a lot of people. And now we have all these alternatives and I still see people out there complaining after the fact that it costs so much to do X, Y, or Z. But as a consumer, like you have more options than just, you know, just the high brand, you know, the high dollar. It’s kind of an interesting like, we’re in an interesting spot now where we can make different decisions. Everybody has that information. We, it could be better, but people have that information. Does Edmo have any role in in that access? And how would you see what you’re trying to do as kind of leveling that playing field for institutions and for students?

Ashish Fernando (10:55): Yeah, it’s a great question. So, you know, when we started we were on the student side, right? We were like, okay, we’ll help one student at a time. That actually used to be my like common lingo. I would always say we’re going to do this one student at a time.

Wes (11:08): Right.

Ashish Fernando (11:09): And we’re going to say, okay, you’re one student. What do you need, okay, financially, like for your career, like where where your skill sets lie. You may want to be a pilot, but do you think you can garner the skills to be a pilot? Maybe you’d be more successful being somebody else. So, that’s where I started.

Wes (11:27): Okay.

Ashish Fernando (11:28): In the process, we actually put together a a gold standard data of every institution, not just in America, but Canada and Australia and across the world, all of the programs they have to offer, the courses within those programs, and what they all mean and what they all do, right? So, what we have is now this core database…

Wes (11:49): Okay.

Ashish Fernando (11:50): …of everything. So, what what that helps us do today, I’ll just fast forward, like we were helping students so we were gathering all this information, but today, I can sit on an institution side and let’s say, you know, I’m working with a university here, right? And there’s a student coming in saying, “I went to this school, I dropped out, and then I went there and I dropped out, and then I went worked here for a year and I dropped out. Can I do something? Like, can you help me?” Now my system has the ability to say, “Okay, I know exactly what you did at the school you went to and dropped out. So, I know partly what you did there. I know partly what you did at school B.” And I can put that all together, and instead of a human having to spend 5 days, which we don’t have the time for. I mean, some of our institutions recruit more than 150,000 students. How big can your team be to be like one… So, with a machine, I can now look at that student personally and say, “Yeah, based on what you’ve gone through, your successes, failures, certificates, competencies, and skills, here’s the right fit program for you at my institution, and here’s what you should do and here’s your trajectory.” And that’s where we’re really seeing the value of AI coming.

Wes (13:14): Yeah, everybody’s talking about AI, right? Everybody everybody’s like, “Oh, yeah, we use AI. We’re doing this, we’re doing that.” That seems like a really productive use of AI. You’re you’re getting compiling this information and using it to give really good direction to consumers.

Ashish Fernando (13:30): Yes.

Wes (13:31): Um, we we can get it right there. I’m interested in, are there places where you like ways that we talk about it right now where we get AI wrong? I’m just like looking for the, what’s how are we using it right, how are we using it wrong?

Ashish Fernando (13:44): For sure. You know, um and I talk to presidents and and teams, like C-levels, and we, I always like to have wear a consultative hat. I’m like, forget about what my product does, right?

Wes (13:57): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (13:58): Can we talk about where the friction is? And you know, you’ll constantly see, not just in higher ed, but everywhere, even us as consumers, we think of AI as one-off products that will solve a problem.

Wes (14:12): Right. Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (14:14): Right? And where I like institutions to go is in the direction of AI is like cloud. You don’t say, “Oh, I need a chatbot and that’s AI.” Today, that’s how we talk, but AI is infrastructure. You know, it’s like cloud. There used to be a day when we’d be like, “Oh, we got to move to the cloud.” Today, it is the standard. Right. We don’t set a data center in at the institution. You go, if you build anything, you build it on the cloud.

Wes (14:38): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (14:39): That’s how AI is going to be 5 years from now. It’s the infrastructure. Anything you build for your institution, be it in admissions, instruction, career, you got to think of how do I build this in a way in which a machine can just eat up all this information and tell me, on a personalized basis for each student, what’s the right direction. Be it for a lea- for a prospective student of like, what’s the right direction for them to get admitted,

Wes (15:06): Right.

Ashish Fernando (15:07): for an admitted student, what’s the right path to graduate for successful outcomes,

Wes (15:11): Right.

Ashish Fernando (15:12): and then for a graduate, what’s the right path to a job and become a successful alumni alum who gives back, right? So, that whole thing today is very manual for us. But think of like retail or automobile and automotive sectors, they’re all automated. Like they can, so, that’s where I’m trying to make a difference is, uh and and I picked admissions specifically, and there’s a reason for that. Why am I not saying let’s automate everything, right? Because I still have to get an answer to one important question about AI, which is, in admissions, it’s mostly operational friction, right? The students at home, right, staff and then there’s a lot of like paperwork and blah, and you can fix that.

Wes (15:58): Yeah, that makes sense.

Ashish Fernando (15:59): But when it comes to post-admission, will AI hamper the human-to-human connection in any way, is a big question I always try to answer because if you put AI everywhere, what’s the meaning in that for us humans, you know? So, like, it’s really hard question to…

Wes (16:15): There’s a little more risk post-admission.

Ashish Fernando (16:17): There is a little more risk, yeah.

Wes (16:19): Pre-admission, those were designed to be automated. I mean, they’re ready. It’s fertile soil to say, okay, we don’t need to keep hiring to manage on these particular tasks. We just need to leverage technology in a way that allows us to do it better and faster.

Ashish Fernando (16:41): Better, faster, and all the people who are there, they can do a a much better job, other things, maybe post-admission, or maybe during admission, but manage the human-to-human connection.

Wes (16:53): This this is clearly like something we talk about all the time in AI now. And that is, and and you’re seeing new cycles of this. Um, people saying, well, the the job loss because of AI, the like, what’s what’s going to happen to all these people? But to your point, these people are going to be used in ways that are more helpful within the system. It doesn’t mean you have to you don’t have to cut jobs, you have to cut job duties.

Ashish Fernando (17:21): 100%.

Wes (17:22): So, you can still focus on, hey, engage with the students, work on mentoring, work on, um, on on the teaching side, the instructor side, but you just know exactly who and when you need to instruct or help them with these decisions as opposed to, you know, that’s where you get into personalized education. You get like, we know personally what this person needs.

Ashish Fernando (17:49): Yes. Yeah, in the end, it’s the value for the customer, right? Bank of America, for example, like look at banking as an analogy because they’ve automated a lot of stuff. We do all of our banking on our phones,

Wes (18:00): Right.

Ashish Fernando (18:01): including depositing checks, which is kind of crazy. But, they went from, they’re almost still the same head count, roughly.

Wes (18:08): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (18:09): But, they went from being everything brick and mortar. You went in and you did everything at the single window, uh you know, deposited money, talked to a teller. Today, it’s all online, but that doesn’t mean people have lost their jobs in banking, you know, and it’s the same, it’s just the nature of, in the end, you got to focus on the customer.

Wes (18:29): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (18:30): Does my banking customer wants stuff on their hands, like palm of their hand? Yes. With education, it’s the same.

Wes (18:36): From a communication standpoint, I always thought it was awkward and weird that AI leaders were always talking about a massive job loss coming. It just doesn’t make sense to me, especially in education.

Ashish Fernando (18:48): Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Wes (18:49): Like, especially where uniquely human touches are highly impactful. And it just it just means that, I mean, the the things that are are like, if you just shrink it to the most basic level, you know, the things that teachers do in the US with regard to an elementary school.

Ashish Fernando (19:10): Yeah.

Wes (19:11): It’s so most of it’s not teaching. Most of it is administrative. Most of it is, I mean, they’re doing so much work that is not what they could be doing and spending that time. And then, you know, that just scales on every different, you know, secondary and and then you get to, you know, post-secondary, you get to your higher ed stuff that we don’t, you don’t need people looking at gathering paperwork on admissions.

Ashish Fernando (19:39): No. Yes.

Wes (19:40): It’s not inherently the strength of the human.

Ashish Fernando (19:43): No, it’s not. Yeah, it’s like we don’t have to we don’t have to do that. We can we can figure out better ways, more effective ways to get all that information and then we can spend time on utilizing that information, what it means on how to impact the student.

Ashish Fernando (19:56): And how, absolutely. And here’s the irony of it, right? Our average institution, across the board, actually has a lot more students who are like roughly 8,000 to 10,000 students, and you look at the admissions office, five people.

Wes (20:13): Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Ashish Fernando (20:14): Right? So, like, what how are they going to lose their jobs? There’s going to be enough for five people to do. The challenge they’re trying to solve is actually not how to safeguard five jobs, but it’s like, how do I serve 10,000 applicants and students with five people? Much…

Wes (20:29): In a in a in a much better way.

Ashish Fernando (20:31): In a much better way because we’re strapped for budgets, like higher ed budget cuts and whatever, like that have happened. Now, those five people with Edmo’s AI can actually do so much more for those 10,000. Like, that’s kind of how how I look at it.

Wes (20:44): Yeah, that makes sense. It makes sense that I like your reasoning for the focus on admissions. Like, that’s that’s the most fertile area. It’s ready to it’s ready to, you know, be impacted by technology and be more efficient. Post-admission is a little bit more tricky.

Ashish Fernando (20:59): Got to think about it, yeah.

Wes (21:00): You got to figure that out. Um, okay, so, new partner with the President’s Forum, we’re glad to have you. Tell me what, um, what can we accomplish together? What are your hopes that that Edmo and the forum can work on together?

Ashish Fernando (21:16): Yeah, you know, I, um, people like us who when we’re trying to like bring some change where we say, you know, um, oh, I think here’s a human problem that I want to solve, usually most of us are reactive. Right. And so, so I have a lot of conversation where it’s react like, oh, other verticals are deploying AI and so let’s deploy AI. I think with the President’s Forum that shifts from being people who are reactive to what’s happening in the industry,

Wes (21:46): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (21:47): and and and making it, you know, kind of as a reaction to change versus being the change, right? These are individuals who will like sit there and be like, what do we need to do to bring that change? Therefore, what do we do for policy and and I think they’re just sitting at that table and being able to say, you guys understand the mission of the higher ed institution, the mission for the student. Uh, I think technology can be a huge driver, and so I want to just be able to say, here’s what I think tech can do, and then have that marriage of like, yeah, we know the mission, and plus here’s some tech and, yeah, that’s my goal.

Wes (22:31): I love that. The the idea of, these presidents have really great vision on what the future education system needs to look like.

Ashish Fernando (22:40): Yeah.

Wes (22:41): And what they don’t have all the time is, um, the EdTech to, now don’t get me wrong, I mean, huge portions of budgets are now EdTech.

Ashish Fernando (22:51): Going to tech, yeah.

Wes (22:52): But, I’ve been around long enough in higher education to understand that EdTech is the most complicated area of, you know, modern day higher education.

Ashish Fernando (23:02): For sure.

Wes (23:03): And there’s a lot of risk in in moving in specific ideas and projects. Having partners that are already moving in that direction, in in that space, and can share kind of the visioning that the presidents have as a starting point, and then, and then be the builders,

Ashish Fernando (23:25): Mhm.

Wes (23:26): to me, that’s like an ideal marriage of collaboration partners and presidents saying, okay, we’re going to work on this together.

Ashish Fernando (23:31): Yeah, well said. It’s, yeah, you, it’s thinkers, movers, and builders. And yeah, like, being on the build side, yeah, that’s that’s that’s our bread and butter. You know, it’s…

Wes (23:44): Yeah, and that’s and that’s really what what these presidents and these institutions need now is partners that are saying, let us take this incredible technology, let us apply it in ways and then perfect it with you. Like, let’s partner on these things and move it together.

Ashish Fernando (24:02): Yes. Your best business analyst is your customer. That’s, you know, and so every time we build we’re like, you know, our teams will sit and be like, oh my god, Ashish, look at this proof of concept, looks great. Well, did you talk to a customer? If not, then I’m not even looking at it, right? So, just being here to just kind of understand all of that and just say, let’s build in the direction that we as a combined unit think is is the right direction. I think we’ll move, not just us fast, but also all of these institutions, presidents. Yeah. Yeah, I’m pretty excited for it.

Wes (24:37): Agreed.  I think that’s one of the strengths that the forum has is our partners are experts in different areas, especially in the tech world.

Ashish Fernando (25:09): Mhm, yeah.

Wes (25:10): And being able to have that expertise on hand to give counsel, advice, thinking, best thinking, to presidents is really valuable for us. So, we’re looking forward to doing that.

Ashish Fernando (25:21): Absolutely. Same here. Thank you for having me.

Wes (25:23): Thanks thanks for joining us.

How UMGC’s First Year Experience Program Unlocks Learner Potential

How UMGC’s First Year Experience Program Unlocks Learner Potential

by | Jul 15, 2026 | Innovation, Underserved Communities

By Nancy Trojanowski, EdD, Chair, First Year Experience, UMGC

At University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC), student success begins with designing every touchpoint around the realities of adult learners balancing careers, families, military service, and education. Through its evolving First Year Experience (FYE), UMGC is advancing a learner-centered model that reduces friction, strengthens belonging, and accelerates progress from enrollment to completion.

“As higher education continues to evolve, our responsibility is to meet learners where they are, with flexible pathways, proactive support, and clear, transparent guidance,” said UMGC President Gregory W. Fowler, PhD. “Our innovative First Year Experience reflects that commitment, helping students build confidence early and stay on a path to achieving their goals.”

Nancy Trojanowski, EdD, department chair of the First Year Experience (FYE), explains how.

One of the first steps on the FYE journey is to enroll in a Program and Career Exploration (PACE) course. How have these courses evolved?

We strongly encourage degree-seeking undergraduates to complete PACE in their first term to ensure a strong foundation for success. When I arrived in 2023, it was evident that we did not have enough instructors. Teaching novice learners requires a particular skill set and a high-touch disposition. During my first year, we hired approximately 180 adjunct faculty members, and I also taught the course myself.

We realize that one size does not fit all. We’ve increased the offerings to suit the unique paths that students take, with tailored PACE sections for transfer students, English Language Learners, and six disciplines: Business, Communication and Humanities, Multidisciplinary Studies, Public Safety, Health and Sciences, and Technology.

We’ve also built a lot of dashboards and systems that provide real-time feedback for teachers, which enable us to move the needle before the session ends. We can take action in the moment, which has been really helpful.

How did an InScribe community grow from the PACE courses?

We noticed that belonging was a gap. In a primarily online institution, it was a big challenge. So, we piloted a PACE course community using the InScribe digital community platform. Learners needed a space to chat with peers, ask questions, and make connections. It was so successful that the same platform is now used for the UMGC student community and many clubs and organizations.

How has that community changed since the pilot?

In the beginning, we’d have university administrators present in the discussions, and we heard from a lot of students that that was intimidating. Students are there because they want to chat with other students. So we hired peer leaders—fellow students who post content, respond to questions, do live events—and they are phenomenal. They might have a live event on a subject like time management, or just “ask me anything.” We also run weekly live events, in collaboration with our tutoring services, writing center, office of student success, and PACE faculty.

What does the first year experience look like at UMGC?

We do a few things that are unique. One of them is an instructor connection, a one-on-one meeting that instructors have with each student. It builds that relationship, answers questions, and gets new learners over the fear of talking to someone.

We also created an assignment where students talk to their Success Network Partner—success coach, military education coordinator, advisor, or program coordinator.

We also reinvented Virtual Orientation to focus on what students need in their first 30 days to be successful—the basic tenets. And we’ve worked to customize that in a way that’s seamless for students. For example, if they are military and in a graduate program, they’ll see content that fits with that. We’re creating consistency, but at the same time, offering the customization and individualization students need without them having to think about it.

What do you find is the biggest challenge new students face?

One of the things we heard frequently in our new student surveys is that they have low confidence in their ability to master the technological aspects of online learning. We provided that feedback data to the Tutoring Services & Resources office, and they hired classroom technology tutors who are trained to help students master that aspect. We’re also working to create a new PACE offering that builds that technology-readiness piece right in.

With PACE and FYE morphing so quickly, how do teachers stay current?

We have around 600 adjunct faculty teaching PACE, so it’s a large volume, and while we can’t closely monitor what’s happening in 600 different sections, we can use our real-time dashboards to look at faculty performance and engagement. And then we have faculty coaches who have taught the course before and can offer feedback; they have been instrumental in helping us raise the bar. We also work closely with the Office of Student Success and our Digital Student Experience team to understand the student perspective with the hope of initiating proactive support.

Have you found any trends around when students are most likely to be successful?

“Happy Path” is a strategy that promotes taking PACE as the first course and two classes in Session I and two in Session III. Students who do this seem to hit the sweet spot. A lot of students, especially just starting out, don’t realize that at UMGC, session II straddles both session I and III. They can get overwhelmed pretty quickly. Encouraging students to follow the Happy Path strategy, along with providing course suggestions, yields higher student success and a faster path to graduation.

How Technology Could Modernize Accreditation in Higher Education

How Technology Could Modernize Accreditation in Higher Education

by | Jul 10, 2026 | Innovation, Policy

How Technology Could Modernize Accreditation in Higher Education

Higher education has embraced technology to improve teaching, learning, and student support.

According to Alison Griffin, it’s time to apply that same thinking to accreditation.

In a policy paper for the American Enterprise Institute, Griffin examined how industries such as healthcare and financial services use technology to strengthen quality assurance. Her conclusion: higher education has an opportunity to move beyond periodic compliance reviews toward more continuous, outcomes-focused quality improvement. Her full paper provides additional detail on the framework and recommendations.

Learning from other industries

Healthcare and financial services use real-time data to identify potential problems before they become crises.

For example, hospitals monitor key performance indicators continuously, allowing leaders to spot bottlenecks and intervene quickly instead of waiting months for a formal review.

Griffin argues that higher education could adopt a similar mindset by using technology to monitor institutional performance throughout the accreditation cycle rather than relying primarily on episodic reviews.

Focusing on outcomes instead of paperwork

One challenge Griffin highlights is the sheer volume of documentation involved in accreditation.

Some accrediting reviews involve hundreds of thousands of pages of material, making meaningful analysis difficult and limiting opportunities for timely feedback.

Technology creates an opportunity to shift attention away from managing documents and toward understanding outcomes.

Institutions already collect data on student retention, completion, financial health, enrollment trends, and workforce outcomes. Rather than waiting years between reviews, those indicators could help institutions identify emerging challenges and respond sooner.

Using data to strengthen peer review

Griffin is not arguing for replacing peer review.

Instead, she believes technology can make peer review more effective.

If institutions identify declining performance through continuous monitoring, accrediting organizations could connect them with peer institutions demonstrating strong results in those areas, creating opportunities for collaboration and improvement rather than simply evaluating compliance.

Technology should reduce compliance—not add to it

Griffin cautions that technology should not become another layer of institutional reporting.

Instead, its purpose should be helping institutions identify issues earlier, improve student outcomes, and strengthen quality assurance without increasing administrative burden.

As Griffin puts it, continuous monitoring should help institutions “address problems before they become a crisis, not attempt to create a whole new compliance industry.”

The bottom line

Technology has transformed quality assurance in industries where continuous improvement is essential.

Griffin believes higher education has an opportunity to do the same by using data to identify challenges earlier, focus accreditation on meaningful outcomes, and create a system that better supports both institutions and the students they serve.

Transcript

Wes Smith (01:20.952)
Hey Allison, good to see ya. Welcome to the podcast.

Alison Griffin (01:31.353)
Great to see you, Wes. Thanks for having me.

Wes Smith (01:34.488)
Hey, I I know you’ve been doing a lot of thinking around accreditation. And we we’ve had we have you on the show to talk through a little bit about accreditation and about large cycle, what’s happening in higher education, especially in terms of technology and how that’s impacting everything. And that’s a kind of a new conversation for us. What what is technology doing in terms of accreditation? You’ve done some thinking on that. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’ve done there?

Alison Griffin (02:04.144)
Absolutely. So about a year ago, I was asked by the American Enterprise Institute to write a policy paper on a topic of my choosing related to accreditation. And the thing that struck me most about accreditation was that we don’t often talk about technology when it comes to quality assurance. And so I asked my colleagues at AEI if I could actually explore this concept in a little bit more depth. And so as I got in

To that research, that desk research, I started to uncover that there are a number of industries that rely on technology for their quality assurance frameworks and their processes in a much more intimate way than what any of our accreditors across the higher education landscape do today. And so I took the pen, truly pen to paper, and started writing on this topic. And what I uncovered.

was was pretty interesting, particularly when it comes to documentation that our institutions are creating and producing for the quality review process.

Wes Smith (03:16.758)
It it doesn’t surprise me that education isn’t on the cutting edge of quality assurance monitoring using technology, but what are some industries that that you found were more on the cutting edge?

Alison Griffin (03:29.26)
absolutely. So, well, the two that I spent some time exploring in depth were healthcare, not a surprise, and financial services, also not a surprise. The similarities with healthcare is that they have a joint commission that actually evolved from episodic site visits to ongoing quality assurance indicators.

one of the examples that I was able to learn a lot more about was at Johns Hopkins. They run this patient flow dashboard with 10 KPIs, and administrators are able to spot quickly bottlenecks instead of seeing that months later. And so I just started thinking about what if we were to apply that same concept in the institution context. You know, all of our institutions have.

KPIs or strategy frameworks, they all show up differently. But what if you actually built a dashboard where you started to see some of those bottlenecks in the data that might be coming through? You know, whether they’re financial indicators or whether it’s staff transition or even student enrollment numbers, where institutions could be a little bit more just in time responsive as opposed to months or years later.

catching some of these issues.

Wes Smith (04:59.054)
I love in in higher ed, we take our accreditations seriously. And there are so many people that want to see accreditation to protect, you know, consumers. That being said, there is no more important industry for quality assurance than healthcare. It it is literally life and death in healthcare. And and those KPIs are saving people’s lives, right? They’re saying, hey, we have a problem here. We need fast intervention.

And so you it sounds like what you’re saying is if it’s good enough for for financial services, if it’s good enough for the healthcare sector, why aren’t we taking some notes from that and figuring out how we can have faster intervention in higher education? Does that sound about right?

Alison Griffin (05:44.901)
That sounds about right. I, you know, I think today our creditors are asking institutions essentially like, how can we help you make your case? Whereas I started asking the question, like, what do the data actually show? And so, what do the data show? How can we start looking at the outcomes of our institutions instead of trying to fit into

What our quality assurance framework wants us to be.

Wes Smith (06:18.774)
Right, right. Okay, so if you’re if you’re applying this to accreditation and you’re you’re saying, okay, we have so much information, we can we can review it, you know, as in real time, essentially, and we can have faster remedies for troubling situations. Can you give us an example or two about what higher education is in a position to monitor right now?

on a regular basis that we don’t monitor.

Alison Griffin (06:50.64)
Sure. I’d like to start by just giving your listeners an example that I laid out in the paper. And that was my review of some Department of Education records and the requirement that they have for agencies, so the accreditation agency, to produce documentation on what they’re doing. And the example was one of the

regional accreditors, I guess now operating, of course, across regions, produced over 800,000 pages for their review. So you think about even half of that, right? We’ll take 400,000 pages. A single reviewer who is reading 40 pages an hour, it’s gonna take them five years to do that work.

Wes Smith (07:43.362)
That is wild.

Alison Griffin (07:45.307)
Right. And so that’s that’s the and this is probably not a topic for today’s conversation, but you know, that’s the federal government’s oversight of the accreditor. And then you think about the accreditors’ oversight of all the institutions and or programs in its purview. And so if if if our agencies, our accrediting agencies aren’t staffed to be able to do

You know, this review, we are leaving institutions without a review that provides them with the feedback and opportunity for improvement that they may actually be seeking. And so your question about, you know, what what could technology aid in right now? There are a couple of things I feel like our institutions are ready broadly to do.

So completion and retention from a disaggregated with a disaggregated approach. We are already collecting a lot of that information. It’s already broadly comparable. Those are some of our leading indicators that our institutions are looking at. So your retention drop shows up years before your graduation rate does. Great. So we can check that box. Economic outcomes.

I think done really carefully, the measure to emphasize is actually the value-added earnings, the wage gain an institution generates relative to their cost of attendance, you know, not just raw graduate salaries. So, how do we start looking at some of those value-added metrics? And of course, there are institutions and systems that are starting to do that work, certainly given the federal rule changes around accountability.

I think we’re gonna start seeing that data emerge more readily. So that would be the second thing.

Wes Smith (09:43.51)
Right. I I love the focus on outcomes. accreditation has, you know, this this traditional approach, generally speaking, of taking a lot of time to review inputs. And getting to the outputs seems to be the most important thing we can do. You’ve named one that I think is just the highest level.

Output that you can measure, which is economic gain. You know, what what are the what are the impacts of you know this program from this institution on your bottom line as a consumer? So I think that we’ve we’ve hit on one of the most important outcomes. What other things could could you use technology to skip a lot of the inputs and get directly to the out outputs?

So we can focus on the most important things. Any other thoughts on that?

Alison Griffin (10:42.267)
So absolutely, I think one of I’ve been reading a lot of stories about this recently, but it are the financial health indicators and institutions that for years or in some cases a decade have been suffering through financial ups and downs. Of course, the economy impacts that, state funding, if you’re a public institution. But the surprising part to me is how many institutions now look back and say, wow, we

Could have caught that if we had only seen a full picture, if we could have only done some projections in a way that looked beyond three or five years. And so that financial health indicator, while not a learning outcome, it’s an outcome that students actually care about because it’s whether or not the institution that they’re attending is still going to exist.

One when they’re due to graduate, or two, when they want to come back 20 years as an alum. the other thing that I would suggest is that labor market alignment. So, you know, we have institutions that are collecting data. And in the case of public institutions, we have states and state systems, state agencies that are collecting information. How do we start filtering?

Some of that labor market information through an institutional mission. So I’m not even saying that we have to compare all the institutions in a single state. What if we started looking at them across Carnegie classification? Or we write? And so one, it’s a it’s an opportunity to also share information. I think that’s another place where accreditation could actually reform peer review.

Wes Smith (12:22.892)
Yeah. Interesting.

Alison Griffin (12:35.589)
I wouldn’t say we need to get rid of peer review. We need to leverage peer review in a wholly different way. So if you use technology to get after some of these indicators, get after your outcomes, you see a dip in performance. Wouldn’t you want to leverage the people in the network of higher education who are doing an excellent job at that indicator to come and be a collaborator with your

Wes Smith (13:03.17)
Yeah, absolutely.

Alison Griffin (13:04.177)
to improve on that outcome.

Wes Smith (13:06.604)
Right, right. That makes a lot of sense. some of our listeners out there, especially those who are very familiar with accreditation, I know what they’re saying right now. They’re saying, well, yeah, you can monitor some things, but you can’t monitor everything that accreditors do using technology. There are some parts of quality control that aren’t continuous. You know, there are new programs, there are, you know, seasonal enrollment, some things like that.

So what do you think the exception for continuous monitoring and input would be in the accreditation process, if there are any?

Alison Griffin (13:47.826)
So you’re asking of like the things that might be hard to standardize using another term. I actually I do believe it that one of the things that is hardest to standardize are the learning outcomes themselves, to be really honest. Like we don’t have a valid sort of comparable measure of what students actually learn across 4,000 wildly different institutions. And so pretending that we do.

Wes Smith (13:52.813)
Yes.

Alison Griffin (14:17.497)
Is almost like worse than admitting that we don’t. and so I I think that there is still room for improvement when it comes to those actual learning outcomes. And so I think recognizing that from the very beginning is really important. I would also say, you know, in in this environment of disagreeing better, you know, long-run sort of civic and just personal outcomes.

You know, the way in which people are finishing their program of study and contributing to their local community. I think that one, that’s not really something that accreditation is measuring now in a in a comprehensive way. And I do think that that’s something that is still hard to get after. So it’s almost like that return on investment that is fundamental to community building, I think is is really hard.

Wes Smith (15:16.226)
Yeah, that’s interesting. That’s that’s I I don’t see accreditation doing a lot of work in that area right now, but it you’re saying it it that’s a possibility.

Alison Griffin (15:16.266)
Alison Griffin (15:25.421)
Saying it’s I think it’s important, and I don’t know that it’s the role of accreditation. I think I’m saying that that is something that is still hard to standardize. I’m not sure that I would want accreditation to standardize that, but it would be interesting in this environment. again, where I think there is

opportunity for people when they disagree and they know how to disagree in a civil way than disagreeing uncivily and in an uncivil way. And I don’t know how we’re capturing that, but I think it would be important to to have a glimpse into that a little bit better than we do now.

Wes Smith (15:59.458)
Right. Yeah.

Wes Smith (16:08.3)
Yeah, it’s certainly a big issue in our society today. Okay, I’m gonna give you the last word on this. you you’ve done some thinking on it, we’ve talked through it. what would you say to our listeners is you know, your top takeaway and learning from from healthcare and financial services and other industries that we could bring and apply to higher education?

Alison Griffin (16:34.033)
So I would thank you for the last word. so I think the continua the idea of continuous monitoring should change behavior. So addressing problems before they become a crisis, not attempting to create a whole new compliance industry. And so my charge would be leverage technology where it can help make the process better.

For the learner and for the outcome, not adding another layer of compliance for the institution.

Wes Smith (17:09.358)
A fantastic on point for the president’s forum. You know, this idea of using technology to advance accreditation, make it more more relevant to the learner. That is right on message for the things that we’re working on in the forum. And we appreciate your insight on this and thanks for joining us today.

Alison Griffin (17:27.173)
Thanks for having me.

Wes Smith (17:30.454)
Okay.

Why Online Education Is Still a State-by-State Market

Why Online Education Is Still a State-by-State Market

by | Jul 8, 2026 | Policy

Why Online Education Is Still a State-by-State Market

Online education is often described as a national marketplace.

According to higher education analyst Phil Hill, the data tells a more nuanced story.

In his analysis of 2024 NC-SARA enrollment data, Hill found that online education is shaped less by a single national market than by a collection of state and regional markets, each with its own patterns, competitors, and policy decisions.

State markets shape student choice

While a handful of institutions recruit students nationwide, most colleges compete within distinct state and regional ecosystems.

For institutional leaders, understanding where students are coming from—and which institutions they are choosing instead—provides a clearer picture of the competitive landscape.

Hill argues that this type of analysis helps colleges move beyond broad assumptions and better understand the markets they actually serve.

Different states tell different stories

Hill groups states into three broad categories.

Some are “retention states,” where institutions offer enough online options that most residents remain in-state. Others, such as Texas and Florida, are large, highly competitive markets that attract institutions from across the country. Still others are “leakage states,” where many students leave the state to pursue online education elsewhere.

These patterns are often the result of long-term policy decisions, institutional investments, and workforce priorities rather than geography alone.

Why the data matters

For colleges, the data can help identify where opportunities exist, who the real competitors are, and which markets align with institutional strengths.

For policymakers, it provides insight into whether their state is meeting residents’ educational needs or losing students to institutions elsewhere.

Hill cautions against trying to replicate large national online providers overnight. Instead, he suggests institutions focus on programs that align with local workforce needs and build from their unique strengths.

The bottom line

Online education is not one national market.

Institutions that understand the dynamics of individual state markets—and design programs around student demand and regional workforce needs—will be better positioned to serve learners and compete effectively.

Transcript

Transcript

Wes Smith (00:00.12)
Joining us today is Phil Hill from On Ed Tech. Phil, great to have you back.

Phil Hill (00:06.847)
Yep.

Phil Hill (00:18.345)
Yeah, it’s great to see you again. Always enjoy these conversations.

Wes Smith (00:22.146)
Yeah, these are interesting. This one’s a really interesting conversation to me. You’ve you’ve done some in-depth analysis on some NC SERA data. I kind of feel like a a a serious nerd right now saying that this is very interesting to me. And the the interesting thing is your in-depth analysis on NC SERA data. But forgive me for that. we there are there are there are dozens of dozens of us out there. So what what’s the key key takeaway to this data?

Phil Hill (00:46.571)
Hey guys.

Phil Hill (00:51.253)
Well, the key takeaway is first of all, this is a valuable resource. I mean, the fact that you have this state authorization reciprocity agreement and then the group collects this data and shares it, it’s a great community service. And as you look at it, you it makes it even more clear you don’t have an a single national online market. You have a bunch of state and regional markets.

And only a handful of players really span across all of the states. So the big takeaway is the fact that it’s valuable. And for any school that really wants to understand its position and where students are coming from and which states and who are you competing against, you can’t do better than this, than this data. And it’s important to think about your market. The second thing I would say, if you don’t mind me going on a little bit of a

Mini rant. California, for political reasons, never joined the reciprocity agreement. They did that. They wanted to maintain different consumer protection approaches. But one of the downsides of that is it’s a downside for the California institutions. California is not a member. Therefore, their institutions do not report data to NC SERA.

Wes Smith (01:48.81)
Yeah, please do. No, please do.

Phil Hill (02:15.561)
Yet their students, if they go to another school that’s out of state, that is reported. But that creates a blind spot. So one of the frustrating things is California institutions, public and private, would really benefit if that state would join. I don’t think they’re going to, but there’s it’s just ridiculous. And it does the opposite of helping consumer protection based on how they do it.

Wes Smith (03:32.877)
We have some we have some indicating data on students from California that go to other institutions that are out of state, but we don’t have the same richness of data for those California students who stay in state. Is that right?

Phil Hill (03:50.42)
Yeah, that’s correct. And so what I did is I didn’t want to have a complete blind spot for California institutions because they are so important. So in the case for those institutions, I substituted the iPads distance enrollment data. The problem is for out of state students taking online programs in California institutions, we don’t know which state they came from. All we can say is they’re out of state.

Wes Smith (04:16.392)
yeah. Yeah, okay.

Phil Hill (04:19.955)
So it’s a partial blind spot by the way that I combine the data.

Wes Smith (04:25.409)
You’ve done your best to overcome it, but there’s still some data that’s lacking there. Got it, got it. Okay, that makes sense. especially for our California listeners. If they’re if they want to listen and evaluate your analysis, they’ve gotta remember it’s a caveat that that’s the one thing you can’t tell.

Phil Hill (04:29.183)
That’s that’s correct. Yeah.

Phil Hill (04:39.517)
Yeah, and I th I’m the only one that I know of who’s sort of combined these two approaches so it’s not an either or, so hopefully it’s valuable for them.

Wes Smith (04:47.339)
Right, right. Okay. Well, so describe the the three categories of states that that you’ve put together. I I know that I know that you’ve done a lot of work on that, and you have strategic out-of-state targets, you’ve got retention states, and you’ve got leakage states, but explain to our audience what that means and how you’ve how how you’ve categorized them.

Phil Hill (05:08.879)
And I should probably describe it the way I’ve categorized it is sort of a public policy type of view, where that a lot of state policymakers and schools in states, you don’t like to see your students going to programs out of state, at least too much. Why aren’t we serving our own residents? You take that argument. So that’s sort of the basis of it.

And if you do that, you get one group who in Arizona, where I live, is a good example. Is you have multiple in-state institutions who offer online programs, you know, the Arizona State, the University of Phoenix, all of these, but you’re serving your own residents. They have plenty of online options within that state. You have big states, California, Florida, Texas in particular.

That are so big and concentrated, that’s the target states. So if you have an online program, you would love to get California students and Texas students because it’s just such a big source. That makes those states quite competitive or the competition for those students. And then a third is the other side of it saying leakage states.

Wes Smith (06:23.351)
Okay.

Phil Hill (06:28.415)
These are states that for public policy or various reasons, they just don’t have a whole lot of online programs available for their own residents. And therefore a large percentage go out of state. And the one that I had in the original post that you referred to was the state of Washington. So look at just how big Western governors is within the state of Washington.

Now there’s historical reasons for that. That was one of the earliest universities using Western governors, and it was almost like a flagship state presence for them. But so you have different types of states, and it very much points back to state policy and the schools and how competitive they are within there. So you have different markets, but you have different types of state policies as well.

Wes Smith (07:23.799)
Well, at the president’s forum, we just have s you know, a lot of institutions who who have, you know, this online capability. And they’re operating in multiple states. Some of them are, you know, we have California based that that have a lot of you know in state possibilities, but also national. you know, you mentioned WGU and SNHU out there with national presence. What this this

Phil Hill (07:33.472)
Yes.

Wes Smith (07:53.632)
analysis that you’ve done, what kind of of an impact do you think it should be having on these institutions? What what should presence form institutions be looking for in this data?

Phil Hill (08:07.871)
Well, hopefully I’ve made the data digestible and more easily available. So it’s not just individual business analysts within your institutions who get what’s happening. So you have a wider ability to see the data. And you start seeing things such as if we want to be competitive for this mention Washington, well then which schools are already serving Washington State students? Where are they already going? So who is our

Actual competition. Texas, highly competitive as well. So if you’re trying to serve Texas students as a target market, whether you’re in state or out of state, the biggest thing to say is how am I doing? Who are my I use the word competitors, but where are students already choosing to go? And therefore, try to better understand the decisions that students have.

Wes Smith (08:57.708)
Mm-hmm.

Phil Hill (09:04.117)
Who are they trying to think of when they for those who want an online program? What are my choices? And quickly realize it’s not going to be the same answer in Arkansas that it’s going to be in Michigan or Arizona or somewhere else. It’s very localized. So you need to be able to, if this is our market and here’s where we’re going, for these students who are, what are their choices really? That’s what I’m trying to make it easier to understand.

With this analysis.

Wes Smith (09:35.82)
Right. Well, okay. So now flip it to a state policymaker. So we clearly there’s a reason that institutions want to understand what’s going on in each state, especially the states that that they have a where they have a lot of students or they seek to have a lot of students. But for a policymaker from any given state, what does this information help them do?

Phil Hill (10:02.229)
Hopefully it gets out of get them past the initial shallow level of understanding. And maybe that doesn’t sound right, but what I hear so often at state policy level is we can’t keep sending our students to southern New Hampshire. We need to serve our own residents and some of our investments. Well, you need to go beyond that. You know, is it really southern New Hampshire? Is it Liberty Is it, you know.

University of Maryland Global Campus, how many students are doing this. So it’s basically for state policy. It’s again to go past the surface level understanding, but it’s true, it it should sort of inform do we need to invest more? That’s where I’ve heard people using this already. Hey, I love these charts. I want to take it to the legislature when we’re arguing for money.

And here’s why should we should be serving these students. We shouldn’t just be quote unquote sending them out of states. So it’s in that debate about how much do you invest and try to serve these residents where that type of where the data should be valuable.

Wes Smith (11:13.677)
So, Phil, I know you’ve been around this for a long time in this ed tech world. And so now I’ve got a question. it’s it’s I think sophisticated state policymakers would probably ask this question, and that is it takes a lot to create an in-state option that could compete with some of these programs who have been working on this for decades now. it is is that

Phil Hill (11:37.866)
Yes.

Wes Smith (11:40.894)
Does your would your data show that that is accurate? Number one. And number two, is it worth the investment for a state to have an option to compete with with other options that are have been at this for a really long time and have have kind of, you know, they’ve they smoothed out the process for students? Tell me what you think about that.

Phil Hill (12:06.011)
well, the data does go back to 2015. So you have a historical basis and you could look at any institution and say, when did they start? And yes, the big national brands, you’re going to find the answer was in the 2000s, most likely, or early 2010s, or with some of them back in the 1990s. But what would I do as a state policy maker? I would say the choice is not a binary, do we go for.

online students nationwide. You probably miss that bus just from a if you build it, they will come mentality. What you have the opportunity is to say, we know our local workforce. We know this specialization is what we really need for not only our students, but also for our local workforce. And we can serve our students better because we know them and and we’re right here. So specialization

And you know, thinking of what makes us unique, and part of that uniqueness is your local workforce and how to how to serve them. That’s where the opportunity is. So can you still get into the national market, if you will? Yes, you better be patient. Yes, it’s possible, but there’s a lot more opportunity to target specific programs and specific strengths of your college or university.

system, if you will.

Wes Smith (13:36.632)
So I I mean one of the big takeaways for me in in this conversation and based on, you know, your analysis is it it really is it’s not as clear cut of a national conversation as most people believe. It it is very much driven by regional markets or even state level markets.

And if you’re not playing at the state level and understanding the dynamics there, you’re probably missing a lot on this. Is that is that what you ended up with?

Phil Hill (14:10.571)
Yeah, I yes, that that is definitely the way to interpret it. And it is interesting looking at the data. Although you’ve self-identified, you’re a data nerd, so you naturally look at this, but there’s a pretty rich story about each of the individual states and where students are, and usually when you look at it.

You’re able to start saying, look at that school in this position. I remember that was a decision that was made in 2012. And so it starts to tie in historical decisions as well as you look at it. but yeah, as I said, it’s not a binary decision, it’s which students.

Wes Smith (14:52.951)
Phil, give us an example of that, of of something that you can look back to and see the history and that’s why this th these numbers look the way they do.

Phil Hill (15:02.761)
Well, I mentioned state of Washington. Early on, they didn’t it’s not just that Western governors set up an online presence in Washington. The state encouraged it. This is our approach to online education. And that really ramped up Western governors in that state. So so that’s one example. You have states such as Arkansas, where they, you know, combining their e versity and then they acquired Grantham University and

Wes Smith (15:22.111)
in Washington. Okay.

Phil Hill (15:32.572)
The state system is really trying to serve students more. That’s another decision that you start to see in the data. Now that’s more recent, but you definitely see that in the data as well. And I guess another one, the global campuses like UMass Global, they now the that was an example where they came out saying we can’t keep sending our students to southern New Hampshire. And I think initially they might have been.

too much of a it’s us versus them. But as the programs developed, I think they’re starting to see some changes in how the students are actually getting served. But it’s those types of decisions that you see. One other that I’ll mention, again, coming from Arizona, there’s an HR component to it. This is almost Silicon Valley for online education. So you have so many people who work in this area, that’s where you’ve had

A Arizona State, University of Phoenix, Grand Canyon University, Rio Salado, now University of Arizona Global Campus, which is now University of Arizona, but they’re all co located. And so this is a unique state because you have so many providers here right in the same area. And you get a unique thing.

Wes Smith (16:50.507)
That’s one thing that popped when I was looking at the data is that Arizona is, you know, just I mean, it’s the national leader with regard to online education. There’s it’s it’s hard to debate that any other state has an you know, anywhere near the type of influence that that Arizona does.

Phil Hill (17:06.983)
And the range of providers offering different programs coming from Arizona. Yeah, that is quite unique.

Wes Smith (17:14.463)
Right. You know, New Hampshire has one and Utah has one. And so you get you get the idea that Arizona has you know half a dozen that are come that have come together to provide this and it shows up in the data.

Phil Hill (17:18.227)
Yes.

Phil Hill (17:28.393)
Yeah. And and this goes, by the way, it goes back to my mini rant about California. California institutions, I bet they would love to be able to see this which state students are going where and how do we stack up. So that’s part of the reason there’s a lot of schools in California who are doing online. They would do a lot better if they had better visibility into this.

Wes Smith (17:51.125)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Phil, this has been very interesting, super clear and useful data. We appreciate you taking the time to come and talk to us about it. We’ll we’ll of course link your article in the show notes. Where can our listeners find more information about this if they’re just, you know, looking for it?

Phil Hill (18:10.751)
Well, the on ed tech newsletter is a short answer, but I will point out that I’ve actually recently for premium subscribers to the on ed tech newsletter, on ed tech plus, I’ve actually created a enrollment an enrollment data tool that’s interactive that’s available. So the NC SERA data, the iPads distance enrollment data, you can do your own filtering and sorting and even pick.

Let me look at my school and my peers and see how they compare. So it’s on ed tech, but in particular, the pr there’s now a premium version that’s a data explorer that you could get a lot more out of this.

Wes Smith (18:52.481)
Fantastic. Fantastic. Okay. Well we’ll we’ll send our our listeners to on ed tech to to check this out. And Phil, we look forward to having you back on the show very shortly, I’m sure.

Phil Hill (19:04.841)
Yeah. Well great. I enjoyed this as always.

Wes Smith (19:07.714)
Thanks, Phil.